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To mark our 40 year anniversary, we wanted to hear from some of our staff and showcase a significant encounter they have from their time at ADRA.

Today’s story comes from Jean Tiran, Chief Financial Officer of ADRA Australia.

On a flight home from a financial summit in 2022, while putting his belongings into the overhead locker, one of the flight attendants behind Jean started crying unconsolably.

“I had my ADRA shirt on and she saw the logo and she just hysterically backed up, crying,” Jean says.
In a time where passengers sometimes abuse cabin crew, the other attendants rushed over.

“They all came running to me thinking that I said something or did something to try and hurt her, because she was almost uncontrollable,” Jean says.
“But what she was saying the whole time was, ‘Thank you so much for what you have done for my family. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’”

The other flight attendants realised that she needed to take a moment, so the attendant, Oksana, sat with Jean and told him her story.
Just months earlier, the war in Ukraine broke out and Oksana’s family lived in what would soon become the front line.

“She told me she’s one of six siblings,” Jean says. “Her brothers and dad have all been conscripted. She’s had no contact with them for months. She doesn’t know if they’re alive or not.”

Oksana’s remaining family – all her aunts, babies, grandparents, and her mum – were staying together in the same apartment block on the front line.

“She recognised the logo because there was an ADRA van that picked up her family,” Jean says. “The van came and extracted them, and as they drove off, the apartment block blew up. She expressed it as seconds away from being blown up.”

Oksana shared that ADRA didn’t just evacuate them from the front line but that they helped her family transition into Poland as displaced people.

“That was a very, very touching moment,” says Jean. “She’s like ‘Thank you so much’ and I’m just like, ‘I didn’t do that! It’s not me. But it’s the logo.’”